Last time we distinguished between the interpretive and inspiration (or inerrancy) questions when it comes to biblical teachings on homosexuality. We saw that Bart and Tony disagree on both. Tony thinks the Bible is authoritative but that it does not teach that homosexual behavior is wrong; Bart thinks the Bible does teach that it’s wrong, but that the Bible isn’t authoritative. In this blog we will pause long enough to consider some more the interpretive or hermeneutical matter of whether the Christian scriptures teach that gay and lesbian behavior is in fact sinful. I tend to agree with Bart that the Bible does in fact teach that the Bible morally proscribes homosexual behavior.

As this is a large question of biblical interpretation on which no small amount of ink has been spilt over a long period of time, I will endeavor to delimit what I have to say to matters that have specific connections with the sorts of considerations that convinced Tony to adopt a progressive and permissive interpretation of scripture on this vexed matter. Recall he characterizes the position at which he’s arrived, after what he characterizes as a long period of ambiguity and deep uncertainty, as full acceptance of gay couples into the Church who have made a lifetime commitment to one another.

The deepest underlying and prior question, to Tony’s thinking, is this: What is the point of marriage in the first place? Here he bifurcates the options into these two categories: An Augustinian depiction of marriage as having for its sole purpose procreation, on the one hand, and a view that recognizes a “more spiritual dimension” to marriage, on the other. According to the latter view, God intends married persons to help actualize in each other the fruit of the Spirit; marriage is primarily about spiritual growth.

He admits that a large factor that convinced him to change his mind was his experience of spending time with gay couples, and he thinks it’s high time for the exclusion and disapproval of their unions by the Christian community to end. He invites others to join the battle against making them feel like they are mistakes or not good enough for God “simply because they are not straight.” As a social scientist, he is convinced that sexual orientation is hardly ever a choice, and he takes as a cautionary tale common stances in the past justified at the time by an interpretation of scripture we later came to reject.

Let’s consider the fundamental question as far as Tony is concerned: What is the point of marriage in the first place? It seems fairly obvious that Tony’s treatment of the issue of procreation in marriage casts this dimension in extremist fashion, namely, that procreation is the only value or purpose of marriage. That is arguably something of a straw man. It simply doesn’t follow from procreation not being the only purpose of marriage that it isn’t essentially tied to its nature.

Three main sources have proven themselves helpful to my own analysis of this issue. First, the book What Is Marriage? by Robert George, Ryan Anderson, and Sherif Girgis, who argue for an understanding of marriage according to which its essential nature is “a comprehensive union: a union of will (by consent) and body (by sexual union); inherently ordered to procreation and thus the broad sharing of family life; and calling for permanent and exclusive commitment ... a moral reality: a human good with an objective structure, which is inherently good for us to live out.” This conjugal view of marriage (one rife with spiritual import), in contrast to a revisionist view that eliminates the procreative component from the picture altogether, seems to me to make considerably better sense of the purpose and point of marriage. It includes reference to procreation but not in the one-dimensional way that Tony willfully paints it. 

Second, I would point readers to this article by longtime Asbury College President and Old Testament scholar Dennis Kinlaw: “Homosexuality Calmly Considered: A Theological Look at a Controversial Topic.” It’s well worth a careful read.

Third and last, but certainly not least, I urge those interested in the issue of what the Bible teaches on this matter to look at probably the best single volume on this issue—written by my friend, Bible scholar Robert Gagnon—entitled The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. The most important issue about this whole matter, from a Christian perspective, is what the Bible actually teaches—this is the heart of the interpretive matter under discussion. That the Bible has been misinterpreted before, as Tony points out, is undoubtedly true, but relevant to the present discussion only if the traditional interpretation of scripture on homosexuality is mistaken. Pointing out such a possibility is no argument that it’s the case. That this debate involves an important exegetical question makes clear that the question isn’t merely one of take-it-or-leave-it. There is such a thing as rightly dividing the word of truth—and wrongly dividing it. It strains credulity to think that Tony has done his due diligence in this matter when a book like Gagnon’s goes unaddressed by him.

Rather than discussing a mere handful of biblical texts, Gagnon’s treatment is comprehensive, careful, and exhaustive. It ranges from the witness of the Old Testament, the notion of going “contrary to nature” in early Judaism, to the witness of Jesus and of Paul and Deutero-Paul. With the mind of a top-rate scholar and heart of a pastor, Gagnon also considers the hermeneutical relevance of the biblical witness and anticipates and answers a wide range of objections. I urge those who wish to understand biblical teaching on this question to read this book.

Notice Gagnon’s reference in his title to homosexual practice. The concern is not one of orientation. Fallen human beings are filled with all manner of inclinations for wrongdoing without that fact implying anything about what’s morally normative. The issue is behavior, not predilections or proclivities, trials or temptations. For Tony still to conflate these matters, after orientation versus practice have been carefully distinguished time and again, makes one wonder how ingenuous he’s being.

Not coincidentally, the same question haunted him during the years he half-heartedly feigned his official resistance to gay practice in various debates. With his pro-gay wife he would appear, offer weak, fideistic-seeming arguments against homosexual practice, and allow her to give her best arguments in favor of it. Another time he actually joined with Gagnon and argued against homosexual practice against two opponents who took an affirmative position, and conducted himself in such a way that Gagnon personally challenged him afterwards by pointing out the obvious: Tony didn’t believe what he was claiming to believe, even then.

On this issue, then, Tony’s ostensible “change of mind” does indeed seem to fall prey to Bart’s depiction of it elsewhere in their book: Tony has chosen the interpretation of the Bible on this matter that he wants to hold rather than adopt an interpretation based on solid principles of exegesis and hermeneutics. It’s difficult to see how this qualifies as showing to show himself approved as a workman who need not be ashamed. 

David Baggett is professor of philosophy and director of The Center for the Foundations of Ethics at Houston Baptist University. Author or editor of about fifteen books, he’s a two-time winner of Christianity Today book awards. He’s currently under contract for his fourth and fifth books with Oxford University Press: a book on moral realism with Jerry Walls, and a collection on the moral argument with Yale’s John Hare.